'An oddity and curiosity': Colorado Springs, Denver residents on mutual love of hearses

Jan. 8—Hearses are like Pringles to Art Prince — you can't have just one.

Through the years he's owned half a dozen, one of which he sold last year to some folks operating a haunted house in Pueblo.

The quirky hobby makes his house near Fort Carson hard to miss, though he's never had complaints from the neighbors. Parked in the driveway is a cherry red 1972 Cadillac Miller-Meteor hearse he bought off eBay in 2008 for about $3,000, a pretty good price for that era.

"The car's a celebrity," said Prince, president of the Pikes Peak Hearse Association. "When you have hearses, everyone knows where you live."

Not only does the hearse sport a paint job that glitters with sparkles and houses mudflaps with actual chains, but the body of the car is jacked way up on four-wheel drive tires. You need a stepping stool to climb into the cab, where, oops, there's a fake skeleton arm and hand lying on the floor mat. Glance behind you and you'll see a full-sized casket in the back, along with a scythe and an ax. If you didn't know better, you might be concerned you're about to go for a long drive from which you'll never return.

Prince's huge backyard is a showcase for his and his family's grand love affair. There's his ambulance hearse and two more regular hearses, each owned by his two daughters, who used them as their first cars. His oldest daughter, Susie Walls, even took her driving test in a hearse more than a decade ago, a first for the employee who did her road test at El Paso County Motor Vehicle Department.

Why a hearse?

"Why not?" Walls said.

While Prince doesn't drive his souped-up hearse on the daily, Kelly Zajicek, another member of the Pikes Peak Hearse Association, drives her dark blue 1994 Cadillac hearse everywhere. She's also a collector — three regular hearses plus one hearse ambulance. She's an oddball, she says, and that's why she loves them. Plus, they have all that rich history.

"I love how they feel — they drive and ride awesome, Cadillacs especially," said the Colorado Springs resident. "A lot of times they do get negative attention. I haven't experienced that, but there are people who go up to some members (of Pikes Peak Hearse Association) and say why do you want to do that? It's disrespectful."

Prince might use that question as an opportunity to bring up one of his favorite topics — death. He likes to use his hearse and casket to destigmatize the fear around death and help people understand it's a natural part of life.

"People don't want to think or talk about death," he said. "This short-circuits somebody's brain into thinking about it. We have this casket so people can touch it. When can you ever touch this stuff? That's the education part."

And he has a theory about society's collective fear: "You think if you talk about it, it'll happen to you."

As part of his mission he's a regular at community events, including the Emma Crawford Coffin Races and Festival in Manitou Springs and Hearsecon, a Denver summer festival hosted by the Denver Hearse Association.

"I was born into an older family," Prince said. "Death has always been part of life. Instead of being scared about it, I research it."

Finding fellow hearse lovers

More than 25 years ago, Zachary Byron Helm and Jeff Brown decided to stop annoying their girlfriends with their nonstop talk about hearses and find other kindred souls they could jabber to about their beloved hobby.

It wasn't easy.

The duo stopped people driving hearses on streets and stalked cars they found parked. Friends would alert them every time they spotted a hearse, which meant they found themselves driving around Boulder and Longmont and even as far away as Trinidad to leave notes wrapped in Ziploc bags on the vehicles.

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"It turns out leaving notes on cars in the middle of the night is not a way people are comfortable meeting new associates and friends," said Helm, president of the Denver Hearse Association.

But club membership did gradually grow, though it took around two or three years before they were able to get more than four cars together. Nowadays, the association has 30 to 40 members, fluctuating when new members buy new cars or members sell their cars for financial or mechanical reasons and leave the group.

"They didn't realize it would be as big an investment in time and money as they can be," Helm said. "When you have an old car you can spend as much money on it as you have."

It's a sentiment Prince also has found to be true: "They're kind of like boats — a hole in the water you throw money into."

During Halloween season, from late September through October, the Denver Hearse Association meets every weekend. The rest of the year they get together once or twice a month to take their cars for cruises to movies, bingo and dinner events. Where they go depends on if there's parking for 10 to 25 hearses.

Helm's love for old cars began thanks to his sister, who had a fondness for collecting old Chevy Impalas. The macabre factor first caught Helm's attention — they carried bodies. But as time went on, the morbid factor lessened and his appreciation for the automotive aspect increased.

"They have an immense amount of charm as an oddity and curiosity," he said. "But if that's your primary interest you won't last long in the hobby. You have to have something else that compels you, because once you've exhausted the novelty of having one and the hollow adulation of the public you get at car shows and stoplights, the hobby won't hold much for you if you don't like the cars personally."

These days, Helm doesn't reveal his full collection of hearses, but his main squeeze is a 1971 Cadillac Superior. Cadillacs are the main go-to for hearses, as the company carried a contract with hearse builders and supplied the vehicles for a long time, Helm said. But occasionally, you'll see Lincoln, Pontiac, Crown Victoria, Buick and Oldsmobile hearses.

Repairs will be many

If there's a hearse in your future, find yourself a good mechanic. Or become one yourself. The cars, as many owners know, are rife with issues. It's the primary reason Helm became a mechanic.

"They're like any classic car — tough to own — and require a lot of love and attention," he said. "Engine swaps, obtuse electrical problems, dead transmissions — those things will eat you alive. I'd reached a point in the hobby where I could either accept a permanently broken down car or learn to work on it myself."

And be prepared for potential sticker shock at the gas pump. Prince's hearse gets 8 1/2 miles to the gallon. His daughters' hearses get 14 miles. Zajicek's Cadillac, on the other hand, with its Corvette LT-1 engine, gets 20 to 22 miles to the gallon.

Helm is blasé about the gas, as he's always driven only large and heavy vehicles.

"I've just gotten bad gas mileage my whole life," he said. "The '70s cars get bad gas mileage. That's an era in which they had little understanding of weight reduction in cars. I love my old cars, but the engineering wasn't there. The styling was over the top and wonderful."

Future of hearses

Cadillac is still making hearses, though not as many, Helm says. He attributes it to a shift in the culture around death. More people are leaning toward a more affordable cremation than a pricey burial. But it's a good thing, he says, that newer generations are moving from the religious stigmas around death.

"I don't think people are as tied to these ideas that used to define the death care industry, that you didn't love them if you didn't get a big enough casket," Helm said. "It sucks for my hobby because they're making less of them than before. But from a moral standpoint it's good people are realizing you don't need to feel guilty about not putting someone in the ground and giving them the biggest headstone."